'Hey, Boo' a fresh look at 'To Kill a Mockingbird' phenomenon (video)

"Hey, Boo' utilizes many still photos of Harper Lee, along with radio and film clips and excerpts from her writings, to give a sense of the author's personality. (Donal Uhrbrock/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)

Being a film about one of the most beloved books and films in American history, the documentary “Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird” inevitably covers some familiar ground.

And yet, it also packs its share of surprises. As director Mary McDonagh Murphy explores the film’s relationship with the civil rights movement, for example, one of her interviewees is Andrew Young.

“I didn’t read that book,” he says of the time immediately after its release. “I knew what they were talking about ... It was too close to home.”

And then there’s novelist Lee Smith, one of several female writers to focus on the impact the character of Scout had on their young selves: “I think Scout has done more for Southern womanhood than any character in literature,” she offers.

“Hey, Boo” opens a one-week run Friday at Mobile’s Crescent Theater, 208 Dauphin St. Showtimes are 6 and 8:30 p.m. daily through June 16, with matinees at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Murphy, who also wrote and produced the film, will attend Q&A sessions following both Friday screenings and all three showings on Saturday. Tickets for Friday and Saturday showings are $9 and can be ordered in advance through www.crescenttheater.com.

Viewers will find a warm documentary that, at times, indulges fully in the nostalgia inspired by the award-winning 1962 film adaptation starring Gregory Peck. Mary Badham, the actress who played Scout, is among Murphy’s sources. They’ll see contemporary schoolchildren talking about their impressions of the book, illustrating that it has lost none of is power.

But they’ll also get several pointed reminders that Harper Lee’s novel was published not after the civil rights struggle had passed its most tumultuous phase, but just as the turmoil was beginning to boil over in the South.

Topics touched on along the way include an act of generosity that gave Lee the freedom to write in the first place; the editing process that turned “a delightful but incomplete manuscript” into a masterpiece; Lee’s relationship with Truman Capote, and the dissolution that marked his later years; and Lee’s decision to shun the limelight.

Lee’s own voice is heard in a handful of radio and film clips; at other times her words are read in a voice-over. Murphy also uses a trove of photos of the author. Other voices come from a cast of admiring writers and celebrities including Oprah Winfrey, Tom Brokaw, Rosanne Cash, James McBride, Wally Lamb and Anna Quindlen.